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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI helped destroy Falluja in 2004. I won't be complicit again
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/iraq-fallujah-destruction-alqaida-malikiThe media accepts the overly simple narrative that al-Qaida took over. The reality is Maliki is crushing dissent with US-made arms
One of the results of the US occupation was that Sunnis came out feeling like a targeted community, with Falluja being more marginalized than most Sunni cities because of its history as a center of resistance. These feelings have only been exacerbated over the past year of protests and government repression.
The Iraqi government's recent actions in Falluja turned the non-violent movement violent. When the protest camp in Falluja was cleared, many of the protestors picked up arms and began fighting to expel the state security forces from their city. It was local, tribal people – people not affiliated with transnational jihadist movements – who have taken the lead in this fight against the Iraqi government.
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Already over 100 civilians have been killed in this violence, violence that has been facilitated by US weapons. The Independent reported that Iraqi security forces are bombing Falluja with Hellfire missiles sold to them by the US. But the US has supplied the Iraqi state with far more than this single weapon system. Recently, Congress has shown some reluctance to continue arms trade with the Maliki government, for fear that it would use the weapons for internal repression, a fear that appears to have some justification.
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As Falluja relives a nightmare, once inflicted by my own hand, I find myself in a very different position from before. Today, I hope I can say that I am somewhat wiser, more responsible, more morally engaged than I was when I helped destroy Falluja in 2004. This time around, I cannot sit back and do nothing as the unreliable and self-serving claims of the government are reported without question, and repeated until they become conventional wisdom. I cannot just watch as Fallujans are again forced to flee from their homes, and as their bodies are again shredded by weapons made in my homeland. I do not want to feel complicit in their suffering anymore.
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Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)AnalystInParadise
(1,832 posts)to not be offended by this guy if he didn't also say the following:
I, too, support the right of Muslims to defend themselves against US troops, even if that means they have to kill them
You can call me whatever names you like, anyone who served in the uniform that has no problem with those who kill U.S. military personnel is not a veteran that I can ever support. I can still hate the war and what it did to me and my friends, but I can never condone support for those who killed my friends. So call me whatever you want but Caputi is a piece of shit.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Perhaps my service was from a different era.
AnalystInParadise
(1,832 posts)Don't condone their efforts to kill your (my) peers. He has his right to his opinion but you won't find many vets that would side with him over their friends. And I still call him a piece of shit, and I still expect to be flamed for it here, can't wait.
gwheezie
(3,580 posts)Plenty of americans bought the bush/cheney lie and some of them joined the military, 2 of my nephews did 4 tours each in Iraq and Afghanistan, the one with the most distance from his service has been the most critical of his experience and actually sad,not ptsd sad but sad there was no protest and outcry from americans like we did for vietnam. We can never do this again, well I said that during vietnam also but I still have hope.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)You already know this is nonsense. Why do you people post these things?
There is no magic that means you can shoot someone in a war and it's somehow morally reprehensible if they shoot back. It's meaningless gibberish. "That's not fair! I'm crossing my fingers! You're not allowed to shoot back! You're BAD. WE decide how your country works. Naughty Muslims."
Do you believe simply saying something makes it so?
Vattel
(9,289 posts)If he had said "I. too, support the right of innocent Muslims to defend themselves against US troops . . ." then I would have no problem with what he said. But where the Muslim in question is, for example, trying to set off a IED in public area, then he has no right to defend himself against US soldiers trying to stop him from succeeding.
mike_c
(36,281 posts)It's OK for American troops to kill noncombatants and occupy their country, but not OK for the victims of U.S. oppression to defend themselves. 
Response to Scuba (Original post)
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Scuba
(53,475 posts)
polichick
(37,152 posts)gwheezie
(3,580 posts)I know there were millions marching against the war, the media was complicit in selling and defending the war, I think we went nuts after 9/11. The main reason I think there was very little effective protest against our current wars was no draft, no one raised taxes to pay for it and most of our politicians were babies. These wars did not hit home for many Americans yet look at the disaster they caused.
Now I'm going to sound like an old fart but the antiwar movement during Vietnam was much better covered in the news, bush/cheney et al had the news pretty controlled. I was watching an old Cronkite news program with one of my nephews where the killing and bodies were on the news every night, he was stunned none of this happened on the msm for "his" wars. Those programs reached your average apolitical american, to find news about my nephews wars, you had to look for it.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)
Bandit
(21,475 posts)hundreds of thousands if not millions from the left were in the streets protesting and are still very verbal in their objections for that war and all who were for it.. That includes Hillary, John Edwards, and many other Democrats that signed off on it.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)U history bro?
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)You're not going to get off lightly trying to peddle that bullshit around here, there are still some on DU who were here in 2003 and like Pepperidge Farm, we remember.
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)
tkmorris
(11,138 posts)"Both sides" most assuredly did NOT support invading Iraq. This place (DU) for example was overwhelmingly against it. Hundreds of thousands marched in the streets to explicitly show they did not support invading Iraq. You are just plain wrong.
P.S. The Taliban are in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
polly7
(20,582 posts)mike_c
(36,281 posts)Republicans on the right, and dems on the just-slightly-less right supported it. But that criminal vote erased all semblance of lthe left in foreign policy from those who supported it, no matter what side of the aisle. I'm sorry-- the American left did NOT support the war of aggression against Iraq. Never did and never will.
And I for one refuse to acknowledge what we did in Iraq as "service" to America. Not in my name.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Otherwise known as "historians' entire profession".
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)But I may just be having déjà vu all over again. 
Guy Whitey Corngood
(26,500 posts)and give it back to the Taliban." That could've been written by Princess Dumb Ass From The Woods, herself.
Solly Mack
(90,762 posts)
neverforget
(9,436 posts)
Response to Name removed (Reply #5)
hrmjustin This message was self-deleted by its author.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)The Flattening of Fallujah was an "object lesson" for Sunnis in Iraq......that were not happy with the mostly Shiite government installed in Baghdad by the US government.
The "Sunni Rebels" in Fallujah encircled a handful of US paid Armed "Consultants" (Blackwater Mercenaries), and killed them. (AFIC, a fitting end to Blackwater Mercenaries).
The US Military ordered everyone to leave Fallujah.
They then barricaded the town, and used High Explosives and terror weapons (White Phosphorus and possibly Napalm or Napalm derivatives) to flatten Fallujah and incinerate everyone left in that town.
Most of the Sunnis left in Western Iraq got the message and fled to Syria, several MILLION (IIRC).
This type of military revenge on the citizens of towns is specifically forbidden by the Geneva Convention.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)especially Great Britain. They laid out a map on the middle east and simply drew borders and created countries out of whole cloth without regard to ethnicity, religion, tribe, etc.
They created, more or less, the modern countries of Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Iraq is fragmented by tribe and religion (Sunni vs. Shia). Malaki has refused to share political power with the Sunni. As a result the Sunni are now allying themselves with AQ and other destabilizing forces to at a minimum force political inclusion or at worst to destroy the country.
While I consider Afghanistan a lost cause, I would hate to see Iraq devolve into another civil war. It lies geographically at a very important location in the Middle East as well it possesses vast oil wealth and the ability to inflict harm on the free flow of oil in the gulf.
Malaki needs to find the resolve to include the Sunni in a power-sharing government and get on with restoring Iraq. The Iraqis have always been highly educated and I believe have a chance at a decent future but not if a majority continues to trample on a minority. So far it appears the Kurds are generally holding their own.
Response to Scuba (Original post)
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Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The arguments have been going on daily for a decade or more here on the DU about Democrat vs Left, there's at least a substantial plurality of DUers that do not think all Democrats are on the left.
Hillary for one comes in for a great deal of criticism for her IWR vote and she is just the most visible example, there are more.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)
redgreenandblue
(2,088 posts)
indepat
(20,899 posts)what we did there nor should it ever. 